


Don't Walk Away.

by orphan_account



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - No Androids (Detroit: Become Human), Alternate Universe - Space, Mystery, i wish i could tag more but that would literally spoil the entire plot, rating is for cursing and refrences to violence. nothing happens onscreen., yeah u read those tags right
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-10
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-10-13 15:58:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20585144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Jericho was a small vessel with an even smaller crew of exactly seven people. Simon, their technician. North, who was in charge of security. Lucy, who tended injuries and illnesses in the medical bay. Josh, who took care of their supplies. Kara, a zoologist. And Luther, their botanist who kept a small farm of earth edibles in case rations ran out. And of course Markus, the captain.A man who was currently running out of options."We don't have enough fuel to get somewhere where we can get more. We're..." Josh paused to think of a word. "Stranded."It was supposed to be nothing more than a pit stop. The space station had been abandoned for three and a half years. The people who had fled from it were silent about what had happened. But Jericho needed supplies. And something was probably left behind in the refugees' haste to leave.But nothing was quite right. There are lights with no switches, and no matter how hard their technician, Simon, tries he can't get them to light up. And strangest of all, far more peculiar than the quiet survivors and the lights, are the cats. Four of them. With no food source, and no water they should be long dead. But they still wander. And they watch.





	1. Solarlife

**Author's Note:**

> i know im supposed to be working on famed infamy but uh. i got this idea while i was listening to "neglected space" by imogen heap and i just. couldnt focus on anything else until i did this. anyway enjoy i guess. 
> 
> title is ripped from the song "neglected space" by imogen heap bc if it werent for that song i would not have written this fic

Jericho was a small vessel with an even smaller crew of exactly seven people. Simon, their technician. North, who was in charge of security. Lucy, who tended injuries and illnesses in the medical bay. Josh, who took care of their supplies. Kara, a zoologist. And Luther, their botanist who kept a small farm of earth edibles in case rations ran out. And of course Markus, the captain.

A man who was currently running out of options.

"We don't have enough fuel to get somewhere where we can get more. We're..." Josh paused to think of a word. "Stranded."

"Is there... really no option?" Markus swallowed. The rest of the crew was silent with dread as they hovered stiffly around the cockpit. North was pacing frantically. Simon had his head in his hands. Lucy simply stood in silence near the door to the hall beyond. Watching him and Josh.

"Other than sending out a distress signal, no." Josh clutched the side of his head in one hand. "And that would lead those pirates back to us. We would have blown our fuel supply for nothing."

Markus felt his heart sink. He would never see Carl again. He would never be able to make up with Leo. He was going to die out here-

Markus closed his eyes and swallowed, forcing his pounding heart to slow. He had to focus. He couldn't let his team down. He wouldn't. Simon had a brother. Kara had a daughter. Josh was a professor, he had his students. And North had her dreams of opening an animal sanctuary when she retired. He didn't know much about Luther or Lucy, they were very secretive, but he was certain that they had someone or something too. He would not let them down. Markus swiveled in the captain's chair so he faced his terminal, tapping along its surface as he input a handful of directives. For a moment, he paused.

"How much of a distance can we go?" His mouth felt dry as he glanced at Josh. "Before we run out."

"We have half of a lightyear left." 

Markus plugged in the distance and let the supercomputer handle it.

There was nothing around them but emptiness and uninhabitable planets. Except for one thing. An abandoned planetary colony within that distance. Nothing else.

"Well, what about...." He read the name, froze, then read it again. "Solarlife? There has to be something lying around there, right? More fuel. And if not, we could expand our garden to the farms under the biodome, we just might make it."

"Seriously? Solarlife?" North quirked her brows up, pausing in her pacing. "You've heard about what went down there, right?"

Of course he had heard. Who hadn't? A colony on a planet, destined to flourish due to the bright minds of technology that stayed there, suddenly abandoned. Some of the inhabitants returned to normal lives, but most didn't. They took up space travel. They were nomadic, either merchants or pirates and never stayed in the same place for too long. They were afraid of settling down again.

"It's all just whispers, though." Simon jabbed in, taking his hand away from his face. "Nobody really knows what happened."

"Yeah, because the survivors aren't talking." North waved her arms around. "It's something bad, I tell you."

"This is our only option." Josh said slowly, wrinkling his nose. "Other than wasting away out here."

"We have rations and the garden." Luther spoke slowly, like he was trying to deescalate the argument by giving the others a bit of time to cool down. "We could just wait for someone to come along and help us."

Kara's voice was soft. As it always was. "But the pirates are still around. Its not exactly safe to hang around here. We could hide at Solarlife."

"Because human experiments and murder is _soooo_ safe." North hissed in reply, folding her arms.

"None of that is confirmed! It was probably just weird paranoid people like you freaking out over nothing!" Josh struck a low blow, narrowing his eyes at her.

"You take that back!-"

Markus inhaled as North advanced on Josh. Now was not the time to be fighting, he opened his mouth to say it out loud, but Lucy beat him to it.

"That is enough, out of all of you!" Her voice cut clear. Markus honestly had never heard her yell before now. But there she was. Lucy turned to him. "Markus, it's your call. You're the captain."

Markus didn't even have to think twice.

"Strap in for high-speed travel. We're going to Solarlife."

It was very dark here.

Markus was glad that they had their headlamps, because in the past twenty minutes and three rooms, nobody had found a single light switch. When they looked up, the light from the headlamp would flash and reflect over narrow, long strips of glass. Light fixtures. But no switches. No way to turn them on manually.

"I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that Solarlife was partially run by an AI." Simon piped up. "Maybe we just need to ask it to turn the lights on?"

"Do you know its name?" He turned to look at the technician. "AIs only respond if you address them by name, right? One of the limitations of science?"

"Yeah. You're right." Simon paused for a moment, thinking. "And... I think I know it?"

"Maybe the AI murdered people." North muttered quietly to herself. Everyone that heard her comment pretended that they didn't.

Simon looked up at the ceiling. "Arainine? Could you turn on the lights please?"

No response.

Simon frowned. "Huh."

"What was its name?" Markus could vaguely remember it from something he had seen years ago, when Solarlife was first established. Only for it to fall apart less then two years later, and for it to sit vacant for three more. He knew it wasn't a real name. Numbers or something.

"Arainine. Spelled r-a, then the number nine." Oh yeah, rA9. He remembered it now.

"Maybe its offline. Could explain why they had to abandon the colony, rA9 ran almost everything." Markus pointed out, looking around the room. "Either way, should we camp out in the colony or sleep in Jeri-"

Something clattered to the ground the next room over. Something loud. Something that couldn't have moved on its own.

Nobody was in that room... Nobody from Jericho at least.

Markus felt his throat constrict.

They weren't alone.

Nobody spoke. Markus moved first, creeping as quietly as he could towards the door and into the hallway. He slowly, steadily pulled his gun from its holster. It was likely that the other person was armed too. Nobody above the age of sixteen left the Earth without a standard-issue pistol. It was a policy. Space was too empty, too lawless for a police force to work outside of colonies.

The threshold stood open, the door was not shut.

Two, unblinking lights peered at him from a slightly heightened position. Markus lifted his head so the headlamp landed directly between the two lights.

It... Was a cat.

It blinked at him, looking unimpressed as it flicked a pure white tail back and forth. It looked almost like a reverse tuxedo cat. Black where a tuxedo cat was white, and vice versa.

"That... Is not what I was expecting." Josh muttered somewhere off to his side.

"Oh my God, a cat." North's face lit up. "C'mere!" She crouched down and patted her thighs. "Awww. It's like he's wearing a lil' labcoat. You a scientist, buddy?"

Markus swore that the cat _sneered_ at her. It hadn't moved from its perch on a nightstand, above the book it had knocked to the ground, despite North's attempts to get it to come closer.

"How do you know its a he?" Simon spoke now, peering over North's low form.

"Call it a hunch." She didn't look away from the cat.

"That's one weird-ass cat." Josh muttered.

"Excuse me?" North sounded offended for the cat's sake.

"I mean, since when has there been a non-human animal that doesn't love North?" He shrugged. "Plus. I get the whole, 'cats are aloof' thing, but I swear he looks like he's about to slip arsenic in someone's tea."

"How is a cat here anyway." Kara's voice sounded pained and tight. "What does he eat?"

"Rats probably got in through a shipment, wouldn't have been the first time." Luther patted her on the shoulder. "Remember when a couple got on Jericho and ripped up my farm? Maybe they're doing the same thing here. Eating scraps and abandoned plants."

"I guess.."

Something in the dark brushed up against the back of Markus' leg. He held back a scream, instead just stumbling forwards deeper into the cat's room. He spun around, looked down and-

Just another cat.

This one was a ginger tabby. It flicked its tail and sat down, mewing.

"Awww, she likes you, Markus!" Nobody commented on the use of 'she' this time.

"I guess." Markus' voice shook a bit. Two more pairs of flickering eyes were behind his crew, he couldn't see what they looked like. The others were blocking them. "Uh... Two more behind you guys."

"They're probably just checking out the new humans, it must get kinda lonely out here." North offered her hand to the tabby. She did not sniff the woman's hand. Just gave her an odd look. "Oh, okay." North pulled her hand back when the cat didn't come any closer. She sounded disappointed.

"We have all been awake for over ten hours, we could use some sleep." Lucy said slowly, glancing between the three newcomers and the 'labcoat-cat' "I think... We should rest in Jericho. Not in Solarlife."

"That sounds like a good plan. Let's all listen to our doctor." Markus added quickly. He was eager to get back to something more familiar. With lights. "We can keep looking for supplies tomorrow."

North blinked at him, opening and closing her mouth before finally speaking. "Okay. Yes, sir."

The others left first. But Markus felt himself lingering in the threshold.

Markus glanced back at the first cat. The glow of his eyes hid their color, but he swore that there was something dead to them.

Something that had either died long ago. Or longed to be dead.

What exactly had happened here?

Why would someone just leave their cats behind?

Markus swallowed and hurried after the others, but froze when his headlamp glittered on something out of the corner of his eye. He walked over to the corner that it was in. A small glass circle glittered near the ceiling. It took him a moment to realize that it was a security camera.

He tapped the surface, the glass was... warm beneath his hand. Markus jerked his hand back.

The camera was in use.

Someone was here.


	2. Abyss

Something landed on his chest, pressing its weight down into him, pinning him to his bed.

Markus jolted awake. He threw himself to the side, crashing to the ground with a heavy thump. Grasping blindly in the dark, he fumbled to grab his gun and turn the lights on.

Labcoat-cat gave Markus and his gun an unimpressed look. He bared his teeth, in what Markus could have _sworn _was a sneer.

"Uh, how did you get in my ship?" Markus didn't let go of the gun, but he lowered it so he was no longer pointing it at a literal cat. The cat blinked at him slowly. Markus could see now, in proper lighting, that the cat had gray eyes. The cat sniffed softly and glanced towards his door. Markus followed the gaze to see the ginger tabby cat.

The tabby stood quietly in the threshold. She blinked wide blue eyes at Labcoat.

Markus cleared his throat and slowly walked towards the door. He could hear his bedsheets shifting behind him, presumably as Labcoat jumped off, as soon the cat was darting past his legs and into the hall. Labcoat turned to the left, towards Jericho's exit, but glanced back at him. He paused, waiting.

"Hey! Simon, North!" Markus faced the right-hand hall and shouted.

He could hear muffled noises from the rest of the crews' rooms and after only a few moments, North was poking her head out of her quarters. "Markus, you fucking shit. I have had three hours of sleep, and it is two bumfuck in the morning in Earthtime-" She paused for a moment, eyes glancing down as she noticed their 'visitors'. "Well... Shit."

"How did they get in?" Markus looked back at the cats, who were now both standing towards the exit. Labcoat had his head bowed, ears back, and tail lashing back and forth. Hopefully the cat wasn't about to scratch anyone, because he looked furious.

"Uhhhh." North glanced back towards the other doors. "Simon! Up! Up! Up!"

"We were hacked." The blond man rubbed his eyes, exhausted as he propped an elbow on the table that they sat at. "Remotely. Whoever did it must have a beefy computer."

"Just how powerful?" Markus glanced over at the second table in the dining area. Labcoat sat up on its surface, glaring at them. Tabby perched on a chair beside the table, doing what Markus definitely recalled Carl once calling, 'loafing'.

"Strong enough to override Jericho's firewalls in less than a minute."

Markus whistled softly. Processing power like that was hard to come by. And terrifying. It was hard to think of a way that someone could have just found one. Then again, Solarlife had a couple of rather intelligent engineers based at it in its heyday. One of them could have left their computer behind in their flight.

"Holy shit." North hissed, teeth snapping against each other. "That is insane."

"Really, they could have done anything." Simon glanced over his shoulder nervously. "Rewired our oxygen supply, killing us in our sleep, even. But they just... Let the cats in."

"Maybe whoever it is... Wants us to take them?" Markus said slowly, looking back over at Labcoat. The cat flicked an ear at him as he spoke.

"Ever heard of the Acoustic Kitty experiments?" North jabbed. "That time that the CIA tried to strap some shit onto cats to spy on the Soviets? Wouldn't be surprised if its something like that."

"Okayyy." Markus said slowly. He didn't look away from the cats. Tabby was glancing up at Labcoat. She made an annoyed noise at him, flicking her tail out to the side but keeping her paws tucked beneath her body. Now that he looked closer, she was definitely a few shades lighter than ginger. What was it called again? Dilute? Her fur was almost creamy.

Tabby glanced at them, blinking at the three humans. Her shining blue eyes scanned over them before her jet pupils fixed on Markus himself. Slowly, the cat pointed her snout to one side, then the other.

Did that cat just fucking shake her head at him?

"Am I losing my mind or did anyone else see that?"

"See what?" North looks at him, then looks where he is looking. "The... cats?"

"I swear that Tabby just... Shook her head?"

"Markus I think you just might be losing it." North didn't look at Markus, keeping her eyes on the felines. But steadily, and ever so slowly, Tabby looked up at North and turned her head back and forth again.

"You mean that?" North watched them. Labcoat glanced down at Tabby and slowly stood up. The cat stretched himself out before hopping off of the table. He padded over on silent feet and glanced up at them, opened up his mouth, and yowled.

The three humans slowly looked at the cat. Labcoat responded by turning around, taking a few steps towards the door, and looking back at them. He yowled again, slamming a front paw down onto the ground.

"Does he want us to.... Follow him?" North spoke slowly as Tabby jumped down to stand next to her friend. Both cats just... stared at them. Waiting. Nobody responded to the question. No-one wanted to.

Markus blinked. "Well..."

"...What better option do we have?"

Each footstep echoed as the group of three and their two four-legged guides ventured deeper and deeper into Solarlife. The cats were silent, their footfalls softer than a whisper, the soft blues and grays of their eyes had disappeared beneath a bright glow. It only added to the eerie atmosphere.

The halls just stretched on. Markus occasionally caught a glance of old maps painted onto walls. They indicated that the group was somewhere near the heart of the facility. Rather far from the docking bays where Jericho had landed.

He was rather startled when the cats came to a stop, finally choosing a doorway and padding inside.

It was a large room. With many flat, long metal tables and no less than four computers scattered about the room, their monitors dark and the smooth glass reflecting light. Pieces of metal and machinery cluttered most surfaces.

But most noticeable, was the two dead bodies. Well-decomposed skeletons. One laid own with their hands clasped over their pelvis, as if someone has gently laid the man to rest after death, while the other was allowed to be in a half-fetal position on the ground, body twisted in the final throes of agony.

"Oh my, that is..." North looked at the bodies. "A thing... That exists."

Markus paused and turned his head to stare at a spot near the door. "This was... A research lab. For robotic technology." He double and triple checked the name of the room.

"And why are there two human corpses in here? Hmmm?" North rubbed her temples nervously.

"They had three young prodigies fresh out of college, as well as two older scientists. Their work was impressive. I heard that... before this happened. That they were working on more advanced, independent AIs." Simon walked over to a table, picking up a discarded metallic rod. "They were going to revolutionize the robots of today. But now all five of them are missing. Could be two of them."

"Five scientists and only four personal computers?" North brushed dust off of one of the PC's towers. "Those fancy-science types don't read as the kind of people who share things like that."

Markus hadn't looked away from the wall.

"rA9 doesn't have access to this room."

"What?" Simon glanced at him.

"The mark for an AI, the blue triangle. Its not in here."

"Oh, you're right-" Simon looked around now too, eyes scanning the walls. "That means... If I bring an energy cell over here I could hook it up and turn the computers back on. It runs separate from the rest of the settlement's systems."

"Well shit." North looked back at the cats. Labcoat was staring at one of the cadavers, the one that had been laid out gently. "The cats sure knew something was different here."

The bodies had been moved into a more dignified place, after Lucy had looked them over. The woman believed that the man who had been laid out died from injuries to soft tissues, poisoning, or something else that wouldn't leave a mark on bone. The other, however, had been shot four times in the chest. Which was...

Gruesome.

"All of the computers are locked, except for one." Simon rubbed his face. "They are too advanced for me to hack. Far too advanced. But... I can get the other one open."

"Let's do it."

Simon worked quickly, linking the energy cell to the computer he was talking about. The monitor flickered to life, buffering for a moment before swapping to a home screen.

It was a group of three people. Two men and one woman. The two men were nearly identical, with the same tousled brown hair and freckled skin. But they noticeably had different builds and eye colors. One a dark brown and the other a cool gray. The woman was blonde, and had shining blue eyes. All three were smiling, and holding papers in their hands. Upon closer inspection, the papers were an acceptance notice to Solarlife's tech team.

"The three interns?" Markus assumed out loud, looking across the screen to see what files the person had on their computer. He clicked on the man's journal.

"Connor N. Anderson." He read the man's name aloud. "Looks like he kept a journal up until... Just over two years ago. For just over four months from when he arrived at Solarlife to when the journals cut off."

"Well." North leaned up next to him. "Time to get reading."

The early entries didn't say much, but from it they were able to gather quite a bit about who Connor was. His younger brother by two years, Niles, had also been accepted to the program. The girl was their close friend, one Chloe Goldloom. Connor also had a twin brother, Cole, and a father, both of whom worked for the police force. They had requested a transfer to the small Solarlife law enforcement team in order to keep the family together. A request that had been granted, as Connor jubilantly remarked around one month in.

It was only a month and a half before the entries stopped that things began to go downhill.

Niles was found dead, his throat slit by a wire. Connor didn't update his journal for two days following the death. When he finally began to write again, most of it was lamenting about his lost brother, and a small note of:

> _Mr. Kamski appears to be coping in his own way. He built a robotic feline, and I swear that one can draw a resemblance between its fur pattern and the jacket that Niles always loved to wear. I've never seen an AI like that one before. Maybe Kamski is onto something. _
> 
> _But I can't bring myself to care that much. I miss my brother. _
> 
> _And we don't know who his killer is._

Markus closed the journal and gave a hard look at the desktop picture, at the smiling taller man, an arm looped around his older brother's shoulders. He, in the photo, wore a black turtleneck and a high-collared white jacket.

Markus gave Labcoat a long look, the cat flicked his tail at him in response.

He turned back to the journals.

Only five weeks after Niles was murdered, Chloe showed up the same way. Connor seemed to be panicking now. His formerly perfect entries were now wrought with typos and grammar errors.

> _Oh god Chloe. No. Am i next? the other intenrs are dead. im the onky one left. im scared. Dad is tryig to get Cole and I off Solarlife. but i dount itll do any good. kamski and stern say that ill be fine. But wre still dont know who killed them. Im scared. Im so fucking scared and I miss and I miss Niles and Chloe. It hurts so bad, but kamski still made another fucking cat like this is normal. i want my brother and i want chloe not these. not this. _
> 
> _god, why couldnt they have killed me instead._

The entries stopped only three days later. No less frantic. Markus pinched the bridge of his nose.

"This is a lot to take in." North spoke slowly. "Just.. A lot."

Simon opened his mouth like he wanted to say something, but was interrupted by a noise. Metallic and soft. All three of them turned to look.

Tabby, who Markus now knew was modeled after a dead woman, tapped her paw repeatedly against the energy cell. Impatient. She looked up at them, flicked her tail back and forth, and hit it again.

"Hey... Uh..." North nudged her with her foot. "Chloe? Do you mind not smacking that."

"Calling the... robot that just feels wrong." Simon muttered. "Chloe was a real person who got murdered by someone. She was young, and she didn't deserve it. It feels wrong to name the machine after her, I guess."

Tabby- or Chloe? Tabby? Markus was going to stick with Tabby- hissed and darted past North, hopping on top of the cell. She... It? It. It grabbed the cord in a paw and gave it a swat, giving Simon a weird look.

"I think it wants you to unplug it?" Markus looked up from the cat to look at the other man.

"What do you mean it wants me to?"

"Just like how it wanted us to come to this room. I don't know. Just try it."

Simon made a face but did it, unhooking the power cell. Connor's computer went dead. Tabby jumped off of it and padded over to one of the other computers, tapping a paw urgently over the port where the power cell could be hooked up. Simon did so without a word.

The monitor lit up, but had the message:

> _Enter Password: ____________________

Tabby jumped up, Labcoat watching her from a nearby table. Slowly, the robot pressed a paw down over one letter on the keyboard. Then another. Then another. One after the other.

> _Enter Password: am2002_

The cat but-not-a-cat pressed enter.

> _Welcome back, Elijah._

**Author's Note:**

> heres some basic rules of the universe in the fic lmao:
> 
> space is infinitely big. 
> 
> a manmade AI has limits. it cannot think or act on its own, and unless it is addressed by name it doesnt understand that it is being spoken to. 
> 
> life is very, very rare. due to that whole infinity thing, there definitely are aliens out there somewhere. but humans are nowhere near close to finding them


End file.
